


City of Blinding Lights

by celli-inkblots (thebeespatella)



Category: Fake News RPF, Pundit RPF (US)
Genre: Angst, Community: fakenews_fanfic, Divorce, Explicit Language, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-21
Updated: 2009-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:37:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeespatella/pseuds/celli-inkblots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“'So, uh, play with your kids a lot, Nate. Congratulate them when they do well in school. Oh, and don’t fall in love with someone else while you’re married. It’s kind of a mood killer.'”</p>
            </blockquote>





	City of Blinding Lights

**Author's Note:**

> All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

 

“The more you see the less you know  
The less you find out as you go  
I knew much more then than I do now…”

\- “City of Blinding Lights”, U2

“A city lit by fireflies”  
_**November**_

He spends the first week at Stephen’s. It hurts, but where else? He doesn’t have anywhere else to go – that apartment up in the city holds too fresh, too raw, bursting too full of memories. Too many crayon scribbles on white walls, too many lingering smells, sprinkles of jasmine perfume. So he packs up everything he really, really needs, puts it into four boxes and a bag, and takes the train down to Montclair.

Well, he’d asked, of course. But essentially, here he is, new divorcee, holding it all, all his worldly possessions in four boxes. Funny. He thought he’d had so much more. He drives with Stephen to work, but nobody makes a crack, except perhaps a line from Jason and the jokes Jon’s making in his own mind. Nobody speculates, because they are all aware of what’s been happening. Jon had told them, of course. They’d sat down a month before, yet another writer’s meeting, and he’d said, “I’m getting divorced.” The silence was so strong he’d wanted to laugh. They all looked at him, not knowing what to say. “Just…wanted to get that out of the way. Um. So what about that report they showed? Last night? On television?” He had glanced to the back of the room, where Stephen had stood, arms folded, a grimness and sympathy and approval in his face, in the way the harsh lights flickered off his glasses for a moment. Jon had smiled back reflexively, and it comforted him to know that Stephen knew it was fake.

Minutes, hours, days pass, and after a week Jon knows he can no longer impose himself on Stephen and Evie, has to stop dancing in this strange limbo where there are noises of children that aren’t his. He hasn’t talked to Tracey. She said, “I’ll call you”, which Jon knows means, “Leave me alone.” He shrugs it off, bids his goodbyes – he’s gotten to quite like Maddie’s sense of humor – and goes back to New York, back to a fast city that doesn’t have too much time for solitary grief and questions. He gets a hotel room, looks around in the newspapers and everywhere for an apartment near the studio, to eliminate the commute. Because time spent waiting was time spent thinking.

He finally gets the apartment, in a big clean building not four blocks away. He doesn’t even see it. The windows in the living room, everything is new to him. He unpacks his boxes. Sets up some very bare furniture, recalls as he assembles his bed that Stephen used to make futon frames. Slowly, it fills up with clutter, clutter from the show, as always. Legal pads, papers, pens, ties that make it back – the show follows him everywhere, as it always does.

He stays up far later than he should, pressing himself to the limits of 2 a.m., 3 a.m., because he doesn’t want to wait to fall asleep. He gets up, makes a solitary cup of coffee. Eventually he stops eating breakfast in his small apartment because it’s too hard.

He wonders how Tracey’s doing.

Time goes by, and he does the show night after night, dreading weekends. Stephen invites him down once in a while, and he goes gladly, dresses a little sharper and helps Evie in the kitchen. Doesn’t say anything as they say Grace, as he didn’t before. After all, now he is the stranger, the loner kicked to the curb. Tracey’s staying with her parents. Nathan and Maggie haven’t seen him in a month now, and he hasn’t been called. He sees Evie and Stephen whispering in the kitchen as he sits and talks to Maddie, Peter, and John, hearing about their days, feeling for all the world like the odd, bachelor uncle everyone seemed to have. Alone, so alone, and it consumes him and he pushes it away in a cycle he knows has to end but he doesn’t want to let go of his illusion yet.

 

 

“They’re advertising in the skies/For people like us”  
**_December_**

Christmas is lonely. It’s not like he’s ever believed in it, but still, he misses the smell of pine, Tracey reading the kids stories in bed. He misses Christmas morning, watching paper fly everywhere. The anticipation, the marketing, the bright lights and festivity are enough to make him ache. He wakes up on the day alone. There is no snow, but it’s nippy, and he takes a walk around his block. Stephen and his family are in South Carolina for Christmas, and Jon has a wild notion to fly down, just to – just to – God, the trees, vein criss-cross pattern against the sky, complex capillaries against the gray – must be _freaking_ cold for his eyes to sting like that –

Just to have a family. He sent Nathan and Maggie packages, but it’s not the same.

He hasn’t really been alone for Christmas since sophomore year of college. He’s always gone back, always been with someone. At least in college he was too high to care. Contemplates buying pot, and then realizes what he’s thinking, kicks some frozen dirt and walks back home. The key is cold in the lock, and there’s a message for him on his phone.

“Hi, Jon, it’s Stephen. Just wishing you a merry Christmas. Much love from all of us, don’t watch too many crappy movies on HBO.” It’s short, and Jon brings the phone to the couch, watches “Miracle on 34th Street” and listens to Stephen’s voice over and over again, cold plastic pressed to his ear. “We send you our love. Merry Christmas, Jon. We send you our love, crap on HBO.” Thanks, Stephen, he thinks wryly. Couldn’t be more apt.

“We send you our love.” Rain and snow start to splatter against his window, that weird sleet-hail in-between thing.

“Merry Christmas, Jon.” Alone.

 

 

“Flashbulbs, purple irises the camera can’t see”  
**_February_**

He goes out on a few dates, and they all end horribly. (All he has to say to Valentine’s Day is “fuck you”). He realizes he’d prefer to be at home. It’s not so much about Tracey anymore – she calls, finally, and he spends three days with the kids, reveling in their littleness and their freshness as though they’d just been born.

The memory makes him wince. It’s as though just yesterday he was married.

The security, the love in a marriage – he wants that. Ironically, he wants an anchor. He thought he’d found it in the show but now there are no breaks, there is nothing to stop him from falling headfirst into The Daily Show world, from keeping “Jon” about him all the time.

Because that is something else he’s discovered: “Jon.” Oh, there’s a certain bravado he knows he puts on, a certain face, a sharpness he’d never adopt at home, but it’s a different person, he knows. “Jon” can flirt outrageously with all sorts of men and women, can pull anything, can be who the people want him to be, without his darkness. Under the studio lights it all disappears. But when he gets home…when he drops his keys to the table and leaves the lights off, he thinks he hears a rustle behind the curtains.

_Who’s there?_

No-one but the calm breeze. He opens a beer, feels him and his ghost take it and drink it. He tries to shake it off. It won’t go.

He talked to Stephen about it. “Stephen,” he says. “I think I have a character too.”

Stephen looks up from his sandwich, pastrami and cheese. “What do you mean?” He’s not in “Stephen” regalia yet, still in the slouchy sweatshirt and jeans, glasses the sharpest part of him.

“A totally different persona from who I am, I think he’s who runs The Daily Show.”

This time Stephen pushes away the pastrami, sighs and looks at his hands. Jon waits curiously. “It’s very difficult,” Stephen finally says, “to deal with having a character. But you can’t bring him home, Jon.”

“It doesn’t matter…I’m the only one at home…” Jon says it and Stephen can find the bare bitterness.

“It’s not healthy to take these characters home, because then – then they grow, and they consume you, and they dominate you. You can’t let that happen, Jon – we need you as you are.”

Jon frowns. “He’s not evil, or anything. How do you get rid of ‘Stephen’, though?”

“The drive home. I let him go, piece by piece. I undress in the office, in front of the mirror. It’s…symbolic, I guess you could say,” Stephen says with a little laugh.

“You undress in front of a mirror?” Jon cannot help but raise his eyebrow archly.

“First the jacket, then the tie, then each button. I change back into my old clothes. I can’t rush it – if I flub one cufflink, I know it’s going to be a rough night.”

“Stephen, I – ”

“It’s purely psychological, I know. But it’s how I have to live.”

Jon scrutinizes him and says, pragmatically, “It takes a lot of time.” As if he has no time to kill, as if he doesn’t sit at home, empty bottles of beer the fullest part of him.

“I’ve worked out a system. Jon…” He looks up, and the glasses glint again. “You can’t let ‘Jon’ take over. He doesn’t seem evil now, but he will take the worst of you and amplify it and magnify it until they’re all you see.”

Jon blinks. That night, as he watches Stephen taping, he wonders how much of it all is true.

After a while, he learns to lighten up. He’s back. “Jon” has melted away into his subconscious. Sure, he’s alone. But he needs to pour the energy someplace healthier than rituals, healthier than figuring out how not to think about his family. Seeing them helps, even though Tracey’s all tight smiles and watching the clock, being with Nathan and Maggie reminds him of who he is. He goes back to being Jon Shtewart of The Daily Show. 2009 is a year that began with much promise and few prospects, but it’s working out okay. The media that bothered him all through the holiday season is now gone.

Or at least, he thinks it is. One morning he walks into the studio, and hears one of his writers in his office. Frowning, he pushes the door open, catching her mid-sentence.

“ – not _here_ right now, so you can just fuck off – no, shut up. Shut up. Listen to me – oh, congratulations! You can read a page. Look, all because he’s divorced does _not_ mean he suddenly starts fucking everything that’s capable of producing enzymes and toenails, he wouldn’t fuck you anyway, your voice sounds like a microwave that thinks it’s a puma trying to make love to a chalkboard, good bye.” She viciously hangs up and hurls the phone at the couch. It’s cordless, but Jon winces.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to.” She jumps at his voice, turns around and smiles, embarrassed.

“She wouldn’t hang up! I told her to ‘fuck off’ and she didn’t hang up.”

Jon can’t help but crack a smile. “Most people won’t.”

“It was ‘Star.’ They wanted to know…if you were gay, because you haven’t been seen out with, you know, a new ‘squeeze’ in a while.” She makes a face at the colloquial term. “Specifically, six months, which is at least as long as I’ve been running dry.” She stands up, retrieves the phone, puts it back. “I should’ve just hung up, I’m sorry. They’ll probably print that now.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “What’re they really going to write? ‘The people at The Daily Show have terrible language and even worse manners!’?”

She shrugs apologetically, doesn’t meet his eyes, and he knows that he’s stated her true, honest fear. “Sorry, I’m so classless.”

“Not at all.”

Later, he regales Stephen with the story, and after they’re done laughing at the analogy (“A _puma_?”), Stephen looks seriously at Jon. “Well, you’re mainstream now,” he says. “You really don’t want to be Brangelina.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Nonetheless, the next week, he picks up a _Star_ , and hates himself for what they’ve made him do. Sure enough, there’s a little caption on the cover with a picture of him at the Emmy’s. He knows that photo. Tracey was on the other side, but they cropped her out. He’s lost a lot of weight since November, if only for lack of home-cooked food. (He doesn’t eat if he doesn’t have to). _Jon Stewart Gay? The Truth Behind the Divorce._ And there’s a lovely little page reserved just for them, with a box that says, “Everyone at The Daily Show knows…” and it rattles off about how “defensive” his team is. He smiles, because it’s true. They are a team. He tears it out, frames it, parades around the writers room with it. Makes an affair of the idiocy, because that’s what he’s built to do.

 

 

“Oh, you look so beautiful tonight”  
_**April**_

There is a man in Tracey’s house. “Who’s that?”

“Uncle Ron.”

What’s his last name? Where does he live? Give me Mommy’s cellphone, so I can find him and _murder_ him – first instincts, all of them. But he’s learned to staunch those. He brings Maggie and Nate upstairs, helps them unpack their things. Tracey appears in the doorway. She’s in a clinging black dress that shows – well, a lot, and she’s already wearing heels at a height Jon can’t remember. She’s looking down at him, and he feels smaller than he already is. “I didn’t know you were coming back today,” is what she says.

“Yeah,” is his sharp, witty answer. “Do you need me to stay with them?”

“No, I’ll call the sitter.” Brief pause. “Thanks.”

“Going out, I guess?” He doesn’t look at her then, recalls vividly the shadow of twilight on the floor.

“Yes.” Another pause. “His name is Ron. He’s a lawyer.”

Jon smiles, because what else was there to do? Like I fucking care about what he does. “Must be nice, having a man who can match you for height.”

She says nothing, so he kneels to hold Maggie close, kiss her on the cheek, and he nearly cries when she wriggles and says, “Daddy, you’re scratchy.” Because it’s such a moment – “Daddy” – maybe not anymore, baby, I could never leave you, don’t you understand, it _wasn’t my choice_.

“Nathan.” The boy slides off his bed, walks slowly into Jon’s arms, and buries his face deep into his shoulder.

“I don’t want you to go,” are his muffled words, and damn it if Jon can’t hold on.

“I don’t want to go either, Nate.” His voice is hoarse with restrained emotion, and Tracey is looking bored. “But I have to. I’ll see you when I get back, okay?”

He doesn’t let go, even as Jon gets up the courage to pull away. “Nathan, Daddy has to go now,” Tracey says.

“I don’t want him to go.”

“Nate – ” Jon starts. Tracey’s always called him Nathan. “C’mon, buddy. I’ll see you soon.”

“No!”

“Please – ”

“ _No_!” He screams it with such vehemence that Jon quails for a second, and Maggie starts to cry. “Why can’t I see Daddy anymore? Why?” And despair overcomes him, and he runs out of the room, into Tracey’s room (Tracey and Ron’s room?), slamming the door.

_Parenthood is the chance to ruin someone from scratch._

Tracey sighs. “We’re going to be late.”

Jon breathes with her. “Well. That went well.”

“Look, just – stay out of this, all right?” Tracey turns to him.

“What is there to stay out of?” Jon asks.

“Nathan - Nathan and Ron don’t really get along,” Tracey huffs. She doesn’t want to divulge information, and that’s all right.

“I don’t know,” Jon says. “That’s not unreasonable, I mean – ”

“For once, can this not be about _you_?” Tracey snaps, and Jon shuts up. She’s in that mood now, and he marvels at how many of her cues he still remembers. “It’s not my fault, okay?”

“Tracey…”

“What was I supposed to do, Jon? You – ” she pauses. Is this okay? Can we talk about this? They both have their guards, their open wounds. He bites his lip, giving her permission. “You told me you were in love with someone else, okay? How was I – how was I supposed to take that? I’m sorry if I want to feel _special_ , Jon, I’m sorry if I wanted to be exclusive – ”

“Tracey, I – I’m sorry.”

“And how’s it working out for you? You threw your life away, Jon – what’s it like?”

“I can’t control what I _feel_ , Tracey – ”

“No, you can. You can. You could have just left it. You could have just moved somewhere far away from – ”

“And left the show?”

“It’s not like you don’t have money, Jon, we could have gone somewhere else – ”

“The show is my life, Tracey.”

“That’s exactly the problem!” She’s breathing heavily now, stray strands of hair falling across her forehead. “You go on there, you do your little political discourse thing – you tell other people how to live their lives when you can’t even begin to control your own – you make people laugh, great, but what about - _us_ …I can count on one hand the number of times you took a trip with us, came to see my parents, _anything_ \- ”

“I don’t think – ”

“Jon! In the end, none of it matters, okay? You betrayed us. You betrayed your family. I’m here, living a new life, and you can’t let go of the old one because it’s gone now – you – you – can’t you think, for a second, how I felt when you told me that you were in love with – ” They both know the name that comes next. Neither of them realizes just how loud her voice has become, that the hiss has risen to a shriek until it’s ringing in their ears. “I felt…so alone, Jon…so alone…”

“Tracey, I’m sorry…”

“I know. But…we can’t change it.” She tries to smile, sadly, fails. “I tried, I just want you to know that I...still love you. But your heart – it’s somewhere else. I did want to be yours, forever. I tried, Jon – don’t you remember the weeks where you wouldn’t come home and I would sit up to wait? We never really talked, I guess. But here we are…I just want you to know…”

He knows, and it kills him. “You’re right. I should’ve tried harder,” he says hollowly.

“Just…just go home, Jon,” she says tiredly. “I’ll deal with this.”

“Tracey, you’re right. I should take more responsibility – don’t call the sitter, I’ll – ”

“Go home, Jon.”

He wordlessly gets his jacket, walks out the door without so much as a glance at Ron in the kitchen, who he’s sure has heard everything. He gets into the shitty car, the car he only bought because of Nathan and Maggie, still filled with cereal and plastic bags and God knows what else. He gets in, slams the door, and stares straight ahead for a while. Doesn’t turn the keys, nothing. He watches the border of the hill turn from dark blue to darker blue, the amber lights flickering on one by one. Ron and Tracey don’t leave, and he feels a satisfaction at having ruined their evening. He can’t hear Nathan, can’t hear Maggie, just the silent street, him and the horizon.

_“Go home, Jon.”_

He takes out his phone and stares at the blank screen for a while, wondering what to do. The road is empty, and he recalls the stark cliffs on the highways, how easy it would be to just –

But no. He owes it to his kids, owes it to Nathan to show him how to be a better person and father than he ever was. Yeah. That’d be just great. “So, uh, play with your kids a lot, Nate. Congratulate them when they do well in school. Oh, and don’t fall in love with someone else while you’re married. It’s kind of a mood killer.”

He’s tired. _“Go home, Jon.”_

He calls Stephen, and waits for him to answer.

 

 

“The more you know the less you feel”  
**_June_**

Jon chooses him for his young eyes and floppy-haired exuberance. Three drinks are all it takes. Hey, they never said he couldn’t be charming if he tried.

Now they’re crashing into Jon’s apartment, overturning things he knows he’ll regret in the morning but isn’t it all falling down anyway? Lips, heat, passion, hands moving in random sync. He hasn’t been this hard since forever, hasn’t had someone else there for so long. Now it’s all coming back in a rush, no pun intended.

“Mmm, fuck – God, right there - ”

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know, do you care?”

“God, I – ”

“We’re not getting married, you know.”

Jon pauses, eyes closed, lips frozen. “You’re right. I don’t give a shit.” The hands are too small, and the shoulders narrow, but he has the eyes, the mischievous glint. For a night, that’s enough.

 

 

“Can you see the beauty inside of me?”  
**_Late July_**

He's started smoking again.

Cigarettes, but, still. At first, he tries to hide it. Buys endless packs of mints, changes clothes. Smokes only on the balcony of the new apartment he’s grown to like. He carefully puts out all the stubs into an empty box half-filled with now-dirty water. But Stephen notices with Jon stops caring too much, and pins him with his eyes and a sniff.

“Marlboro?” he says, awkward attempt at casual. Jon shrugs. “Well.” He pauses, waiting for something. An explanation, a reason, an excuse, but Jon doesn’t really have a reason and he’s tired of excuses, so he leaves Stephen hanging there.

“Thanks for coming over,” he says instead. Deflecting, nothing new.

Stephen smiles, understanding. “Right. Yeah, just thought…you might want some help.”

Jon smiles back, because he knows that Stephen cares, to a point where it hurts Jon a little. “Well, I think – I thought I was done before you came over, but that’s all right.”

“Yeah, I…” Stephen ducks, shoves his hands in his pockets, laughing self-consciously. “I guess I never fooled you for a minute, did?”

Jon laughs ruefully with him. “No,” he says. “You didn’t.” Too sharp. The edges are still not brushed over yet.

“Evie will be expecting me back,” Stephen says emptily, and but God if Jon doesn’t want to be vindictive. If he doesn’t want to spit out something acid and vile, something like, “Right, because _you_ have a family”, or even something about Stephen not caring about him, which he _knows_ isn’t true.

“Uh, so I guess you better go.” Jon avoids looking at him, looks out the window and fights the itch to light up and blow the smoke into Stephen’s face.

“Jon…” It’s a syllable filled with emotion, a wobbling note. “I – I’ll see you tomorrow.” It’s a reassurance. I’ll see you tomorrow – right?

“Yeah. Yeah.” He forces himself to look Stephen in the eye, steps over his luggage and draws closer, and he feels Stephen flicker, almost flinch. “Airport tomorrow – nine o’clock, you know it.”

There is a pause. “I don’t really want to go home,” Stephen whispers, as though Evie where standing two paces behind him.

Jon’s mouth sets in a line. “Why not?” he asks quietly, hope rising in his throat. He beats it down like he has before.

Stephen sighs. “Evie doesn’t – doesn’t want me to go. The kids, and everything…”

“See, nobody cares if I go or not,” Jon says, and he couldn’t help it, looks up at Stephen apologetically. “Look, she – it’s the Emmy’s! I don’t know, I just…” He leaves out the memory of an argument he and Tracey had about the very same thing (“You go off and win your fucking awards”) – and tries to smile. “Well, the plane’s booked.”

“She’d be okay with it were it the Oscars,” Stephen says.

Jon can’t help but laugh. “Right. So, unfortunately, you are the funniest person…but on _television_ , so you don’t get to – ”

“Jon.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s just…” Another heavy sigh, and Stephen buries his face into Jon’s shoulder, just where Nate did, “You know how it is.” Same muffled mumble, sending a shudder through Jon.

“Go home. Eat dinner with them. You know. I mean…” He bites his lip and wonders what to do with the pianissimo tempo of Stephen’s breath against his pulse point, jumping out with every soft exhalation. “I guess I’m not the best person to take advice from.”

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Together.

“You smell like smoke.”

Well, I guess there’s a fire, Jon thinks. You have to stop making these stupid jokes, is his second thought. He knows Stephen doesn’t really care, but he wishes he could stop for a second. Just stop. One moment where he could take things seriously and be taken seriously. Pick, Jon. You can’t be both didactic and funny.

“Sorry” is all he has. “I should stop.”

“You should,” Stephen says. He sounds relieved, and Jon knows it’s because he thinks Jon is being serious.

“I’ll try.” Like it’s that easy.

“I know you will, Jon.” A last parting, aching smile. “Bye.” He walks out of the apartment, not waiting for Jon to show him the door.

Later, Jon holds a cigarette up to the light, next to the cold evening light by his window. Flicks the lighter open, shut, open, shut, click, click, click. The danger of flames at his fingertips.

Randomly, _I wish I knew how to quit you!_

All Jon can do is giggle.

 

 

“The less you find out as you go”  
_**August**_

Nothing feels like it should – not the colors, not the angles, not the way the world blends together. He finds himself pulling everything apart. Maybe that’s why, even when he steps up on that stage, with his wonderful writers, and thanks everyone for, once again, awarding The Daily Show…it doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t feel put together, doesn’t feel the _win_. Even later, too many claps on the back and “Good job”s and “You’ve outdone yourself”s it lingers. That hollow feeling. At first, he thinks it’s because Tracey isn’t by his side. He thinks it’s because when he gets home, he won’t creep into Nate and Maggie’s room and smile, full of success and appreciation.

He realizes later, in his hotel room, while he’s untying his shoes. It’s not any of that. He’d worked so hard that year, and he knows it. He knows that he’s spent all his time on the show, and that he’d worked to prove everyone wrong – even with Obama in office, The Daily Show is going to fucking stay funny was his half-assed New Year’s resolution, and he’d accomplished that. He’d poured it all into it, but for the first time, he didn’t know if it was giving back.

He gets off the balcony, and through the darkness, into the hallway. He is barefoot. He sees Stephen come out of the elevator, Evie on his arm. “Hey.”

“Congratulations, Jon! We all knew…” Evie begins, and Jon sees the way Stephen tugs on her hand so she stops. “Well done.”

He doesn’t know whether to thank Stephen or to retreat, so he stands there and smiles stupidly, looking away from the two of them. “No, uh, thank you. I couldn’t have…I couldn’t have gotten through this year without you both.” It’s true. He fights to meet Evie’s eyes. “Really, thank you.”

She smiles back. “Maybe you should go ahead,” Stephen says, without moving his eyes from Jon’s face. Evie looks at him.

“Stephen – ”

“I think you should, Evie,” he says. There is a strange edge Jon doesn’t recognize, and clearly, Evie doesn’t either. Nonetheless, she retreats and gives Stephen That Look, the you-better-explain-later look that Jon knows too well and is glad to know is ubiquitous.

She leaves. “Can I come in?” Stephen says, back to his gentle self.

“Sure.” Jon holds the door for him. Stephen doesn’t turn on the lights, and Jon knows he wants the dark. “What’s up?”

The door shuts softly behind them. “Jon…I – I can’t do this anymore.”

“What, the” – Jon is afraid to say it – “the show?”

“No…Jon, you know that…you know that you’re just – blocking everyone out?” Stephen looks at him, then looks back down at the carpet.

“I…I don’t think so, Stephen.” Jon can’t look at him either, and they both spend a minute studying their own feet.

“You just – I…it sounds ridiculous.” Stephen sighs and gives in to the tension, glasses flickering first. “But I do just want you to be happy.”

“I think I am happy, Stephen. It’s almost been a year, I still see Maggie and Nate, I think…I think I’m okay,” Jon says, but even now he’s not sure.

“No, you’re not, Jon. I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time.” Stephen steps closer, and Jon looks further away. “I don’t want to ever…see you in pain, I just…I hope to God that you’re all right, Jon. You’ve…you’ve lost something.”

“Stephen…look, it’s true. My life is different. But I don’t think it’s necessarily such a bad thing.” He moves to sit on the bed, out of lack of anything to do. “I’ll be all right, Stephen. Thanks…thanks for worrying.”

“Will you really be all right?” Suddenly Stephen is right there, face looming over Jon, and he catches his breath. Stephen sighs again and it’s laced with champagne.

“I will. I…will…” He can’t seem to nudge the feeling that Stephen is looking through him, finding things he couldn’t find himself.

“Jon…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s okay to find someone, you know. I think it’s okay to let go and love now.” Stephen says it shyly, straightening back up and trying to smile.

“I…I have found someone,” Jon says slowly. “You never asked why she left.”

“I figured you’d tell me if I needed to know.”

“I don’t think you want to know.”

“But you’ll tell me if I need it?” Stephen pauses. “If _you_ need it?”

Jon considers. What would it be like if he just put it out there? If he just told the truth?

Stop playing it safe, Stewart. You’ve wasted enough time already.

No, Jon decides, watching Stephen watch him. I try balance and walk too fine a line already. It’s too fragile. “I don’t think you or I need it.”

Stephen leans forward again, closer, quiet, gradually, until he’s on Jon’s eye level. He’s almost bending at the waist. “Thanks for highlighting the fact that I’m even more of a midget sitting,” Jon quips, and Stephen doesn’t laugh. He takes his hands out of his pockets and places each one deliberately on Jon’s shoulders, thumbs creeping up to touch skin. The heat ripples out and seems to hit Jon right in the mouth, because his lips are burning and he can’t say anything.

“I want you to be okay, Jon,” Stephen whispers, and Jon can feel the breath on his face.

“I do too,” he admits, and screws his eyes shut, hands twisting in the scratchy bedspread. He fights the tears – needs the catharsis – fights, and Stephen moves to hold him. His arms around Jon are too much, and he struggles with the silence. Struggles with want, struggles with need, struggles with ruin. How can something be so close – (that homey cinnamon scent he knows so well) – and yet so, so far? Stephen – Stephen thinks this is about _Tracey_ , but like fuck it is –

He’d worked so hard on the denial, and now it was shattered. He’d built such a perfect wall. So perfect. He didn’t know that the foundation could be moved so easily. That Stephen’s soothing voice was the earthquake that could break his bedrock. That everything he believed in could be shifted with the hard press of hands around his waist. He thought he’d fixed himself.

He’d never been so wrong in his life. He hadn’t outdone himself. He’d undone himself.

The roiling ball of guilt and pain finally subsides, he’s wrung himself out and now needs to dry. When he mumbles something vaguely coherent against Stephen’s neck, he _understands_ and untangles. He lets go and bids his good night, tossing a last, brilliant smile his way. He walks out, the door clicks shut behind him, momentary flood of light, stopped.

Stephen thinks it’s over. Jon, on the other hand, doesn’t think he can hold it in any longer. He’s going to go insane. He’s going to go fucking insane, he knows it. So he sits outside on his balcony and feels like he should dance. He’s tired of playing it safe. It’s not about being lonely anymore – the little encounters he’s sprinkled throughout the year, dates, that one night – it’s about forgetting, separation, leaving behind. He doesn’t want to be tied to that life anymore. Ron and Tracey are still going out, but where there would have been some resentment there is just – nothing, really.

The night air is cinnamon tinged with the bubble of champagne.

 

 

“The camera can’t see”  
_**September**_

 

The Emmy finds a space on Jon’s shelf at the office. He’s started to try peel things off, leave himself barer than before – there’s less to hurt. But he is okay. It’ll be a month from today a year ago when the papers were finalized. He’s okay. He won’t find someone else, and he’s all right with that. Jon Stewart is a solitary creature, or at least so he likes to think. He just ignores all the feelings as they come along. That morning he woke up, and realized only after running into the kitchen that the pancakes were cooking next door. Those little surges of giddiness when Stephen gets a little too close.

Occasionally, he brings somebody home. Always kicks them out the next morning, and makes himself breakfast feeling emptier than ever. But he comes back. He goes to work. Nobody can tell anything, really – he’s learned that the world moves on, and he should move with it. More than ever, the transience is visible. And he’s come…he’s come to accept it.

His audience can’t tell. Nobody suffers, except in silence. He goes to watch The Colbert Report live whenever he can. In the meanwhile. “Hello, welcome to The Daily Show, my name is Jon Stewart…” Nobody reads in between the lines, and he’s glad that he’s hid it so. He stays in New York, that city so fast, lovely and unforgiving. He writes, he laughs, he is indignant, outraged and delighted in turns. 2009 is winding down, and he thinks that he needs a better resolution – the last one underestimated him. He lives. He lives again, and he thinks that just maybe, he’s started to heal.

 


End file.
